


Exposure and Expectations

by deprough



Series: Dincember 2020 [8]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Dincember, Dincember 2020, F/M, prompt: blankets, tw drowning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:33:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28139997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deprough/pseuds/deprough
Summary: After falling into the river, Corrie gets a surprise.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Dincember 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032882
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	Exposure and Expectations

**Author's Note:**

> This is part eight of Dincember. You'll want to read the series in order so that everything makes sense.
> 
> 12/16/2020 Dincember prompt - Blankets (yep, it's a day late, sorry)

Her lungs aching, Corrie fought to swim up, but it was cold, and everything got harder and harder to do. Knowing it was hypothermia didn’t stop it from affecting her, and she summoned her energy for one last desperate grab.

Something caught her and pulled, and she surfaced into the air, coughing weakly. Mando hung upside down from a tree, hauling her out of the water. Corrie tried to help him, but all she could manage was a body-wracking shiver. “I’ve got you,” Mando said, swinging upright and pulling her against his body in one move. “No, don’t put your face against my beskar, not while it's wet.” She’d freeze to it, like her clothing was trying to do already, and she nodded understanding shakily. 

“Hold on, it’s gonna get cold,” he warned, and her teeth were chattering too hard to tell him it was already cold. His jet pack roared, louder than normal, and they shot into the air. He was right -- it was cold as the wind slapped at her frozen skin. She whimpered but he was already landing in front of a small cabin. She staggered away from him, feeling her clothing catch and pull on his armor.

He started to knock, but she pushed the door open. “Hu-u-u-u-nt-t-t-t-ter’s c-c-c-cabin,” she stuttered out. It was a single room with a small cot, a table, and a fireplace. 

Mando pushed her inside and got a fire started in seconds, cheating with his weaponry again. Connie didn’t mind nearly as much this time. “Strip,” he commanded, and left the building. 

It was a choice between dignity and life, and Corrie started to pull off her wet clothing. Her fingers didn’t work quite right, and it made the process of disrobing slower. He returned as she was naked from the waist up, but struggling to get her pants open. 

Setting the supplies he’d gathered from their mounts on the table, he came over and helped, opening her pants and pushing them down with her underwear. She felt a little warmer in the cabin already, but he pushed one of the wool blankets into her hands and said, “Get in.”

“Th-th-the ggggg-urts,” she chattered as she shrugged on the blanket.

His shoulders slumped a little. “You’re not going to stop until I make sure they’re okay, are you?” She shook her head and he sighed. “Stay in that blanket. I’ll be back soon.”

Corrie pulled the blanket tighter and crept as close to the fire as she dared. A gurtskin had been left on the floor in front of the hearth, and she laid down, cuddling into the soft texture. The heat was a blessed warmth, and she pulled the pillow off the cot and tucked it under her wet hair. Despite how hard the floor was, she fell asleep almost immediately. 

“No! Wake up!” Some gurt-kriffer was shaking her, and Corrie pushed at the hands holding her. “ _ Shab _ !”

“Go’way,” she mumbled. 

Someone pulled her up and slapped her across the face, a teeth-rattling smack that jerked her into awareness. Corrie opened her eyes to focus on the bounty hunter. “Ow,” she said. “You  _ hit _ me.”

“Just be glad I took my glove off first,” he growled. “I need you to wear a blindfold.”

“You’re rude,” she muttered, trying to make sense of what he was saying. 

“I’m  _ trying _ to save you from hypothermia.” He took a bandage and tied it around her eyes. “Listen to me, this is important. Don’t take that bandage off.”

She’d already touched it but she pulled her hands away and frowned at him. “Why?”

“Because this is already going to be awkward enough without you violating my Creed.” Something hard and metal hit the floor, followed by the jangle of a belt.

“Are you taking off clothing?” she asked.

“My dilemma is this: you need an external heat source and even my underarmor covering has thermal protection. So if you’re to gain any benefit from this, it’s skin to skin.” Another blanket dropped on top of her, then a third, which she guessed was all the blankets available. “You lay closer to the fire,” he ordered and she shifted on the rug until the heat of the fire pressed at her. 

A body slid in behind her, male and muscled and not too far from her imagining of his physique. He pressed against her, and she groaned as the delicious heat of his body suffused her back and ass. He hissed sharply at the contact with her chilled skin, then growled, “Don’t make that noise.”

“You’re warm, I’m human,” she said, wishing she could wrap herself in his body and the fire. Both burned against her skin, but she embraced the heat. She pushed against him instinctively, needing the warmth he was giving. He didn’t pull away, though she almost did when she felt his erection. The need for warmth won out over embarrassment, and she didn’t pull away either, snuggling as close as she could.

“Please stop wiggling against me,” he said, and she realized two things: she could hear his unmodulated voice, and he was gritting his teeth as he spoke. 

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m doing my best.”

“Tell me about your husband.” A bare hand rested on her arm, oddly respectfully given the circumstances.

Shock stole her voice for a moment. “You schiehole,” she growled. “Why?”

She felt him shift a little and warm air stirred her hair. “Because you need to think about something else, and it’ll help you keep awake.” 

He was right, not that it made her feel any better to be talking about Loren while snuggling naked with another man. “He’s not from Libu or even Zalzus. He was with a crew of miners looking to see if we had rare metals to extract. When they found we didn’t, they left, and he stayed with me.

“People thought I was nuts for marrying an off-worlder,” she continued, relaxing into the story. “He didn’t know about how to survive in a snowstorm, or how to shear a sheep, or card wool. He wasn’t in touch with his family anymore, and I think he was always surprised at how close I was with mine. 

“But he was a good man, and people loved him,” Corrie said softly, feeling tears sting. 

“Did he leave?” Mando asked softly. 

“I’ve told you he died,” she snapped. The topic made this both more awkward and more bearable. “You’re being obtuse on purpose, aren’t you?”

“Is it helping?”

“Loren was a good man, but he’d lived a rugged life, and he could take care of himself,” Corrie continued, ignoring the question and staring at the darkness on the inside of her blindfold. “He didn’t listen to us when we told him that he couldn’t handle a digger alone.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a predator that lives underground,” Corrie said, grief coloring her voice. She felt the hand on her arm squeeze gently. “I’d told him over and over that no one deals with it alone, but he didn’t get help. He tried to burn it out like we said to, but he did it alone. So it killed him. Koda and I figured out where he’d gone missing, and burned it out together, found his body.”

Silence fell over the cabin. “My parents died of a droid attack,” Mando said without preamble. She turned toward him instinctively. He paused to tug the blanket up over her shoulders. “The Mandalorians took me in and adopted me. But I still remember the attack, and my parents hiding me, and the fear.” 

“Did you lose the kid’s mother, too?” Corrie asked. If he was going to hit her with personal questions, she was damn well returning the favor. Besides, she needed a distraction from the hardness against her ass.

“No, I rescued him from Imperials.” He sighed. “I can’t settle down, Corrie. I want to be clear that this isn’t about me making any kind of--” He stopped as her shoulders started to shake. “Oh, um, don’t cry. It’s not you--” Corrie couldn’t hold it in any longer; her peals of laughter filled the small building. “What-- Why are you  _ laughing _ ?”

“I don’t recall asking you to settle down,” she retorted when she could talk again. 

“But… I’ve seen the way you watch me.” He sounded confused and she almost lost it again. 

“Mando, I’m sure you have wonderful and quite masculine reasons why you can’t be in the family way,” Corrie said sardonically, “but I assure you, what I feel for you is just lust.”

“You don’t even know what I look like!” He sounded outraged, and she had to choke back another bout of laughter.

“I don’t kriff your face,” she said bluntly. “And your body is more than acceptable for that. Has every person after you wanted a union and a farmstead and kids?”

“Well, no, but the ones who already had a farmstead did want something more permanent.” He paused and she let him think as she waited patiently. “You’re not like the ones who didn’t.”

“People come in all kinds,” she said. “I love Loren still, and I’m not looking for another husband. I don’t need someone for companionship, I don’t need anyone trying to be a father to my kids, and I definitely don’t need anyone worrying about me out doing my job. Sometimes, I like to have some fun, though.”

Mando didn’t reply, and Corrie relaxed into the warmth of the piled blankets and the heat of the fire. “Where's the kid?” she muttered sleepily.

“Closed in his bassinet.” His hand slid down her arm and came to rest on her belly. Sleep stopping being a problem in the space of two seconds. “I think your core temperature is back in safe ranges. Take a nap. I’ll keep watch, and we can go back when you feel ready.”

Then he left the cocoon of blankets, and Corrie sighed.  _ Oh well, _ she thought,  _ woulda been fun. _

For a second, there was only the sound of him dressing. “You can take off the blindfold.” Corrie sat up and pulled it away, blinking in the rosy light of the fire. He had his pants and helmet on, and it should have looked silly, but her eyes were caught on the exposed expanse of lean, brown skin. A tattoo, some kind of animal skull, had been inked over his heart, and another, smaller one was on his shoulder where the same skull was embossed on his pauldron. She was so entranced watching him that she almost missed his question. “Tonight, can I come to your room?”

“My room?” she asked.

“Sometimes, I like to have some fun, too.” He pulled his shirt on and zipped it shut, and he realized he’d very intentionally left it off to show off his body. 

Corrie blinked and then nodded. “Sure. Stop on by. I’ll be up.”

He snorted and said, “Isn’t that my line?”

“You can have it if you come pick it up tonight,” Corrie said playfully, watching him dress. When he was done, he opened up the bassinet and the alien kid blinked at the light. “Hey,” she said, remembering her pack had been on Slobber. “I have spare clothing. If you bring in my saddle bags, I can get dressed too.”

He nodded and left. As his son dropped out of his bassinet and began to pet the gurtskin, Corrie started to grin.  _ Now that’s what I call an early Lifeday gift. _


End file.
